


Help me piece it all together, darling, before it falls apart

by Emjen_Enla



Category: The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Artist Clary Fray, Clary mourns Simon, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Grief/Mourning, I know he's not dead, I love these kind of tropes, Literal Showering Together, Literal Sleeping Together, Poet Jace Wayland, Post-Book 6: City of Heavenly Fire, The Lightwoods mourn Max, but that doesn't mean she's not grieving, these kids have been through a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: It was done, but that was different than saying it was finished. Or Clary and Jace post-CoHF.





	1. Clary

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own TSC, all these books belong to Cassandra Clare. Title from "Quarter Past Midnight" by Bastille.
> 
> Theoretically, you could either read Clary's part first or Jace's. Since I had to post them in an order, I did it in the order I wrote them (Clary first and then Jace).

Clary hates sleeping alone. She wakes up reaching across the bed for Simon but he’s not there. He will never be there again because he doesn’t remember her and never will again. She wants him back, her world feels off balance and wrong without him.

In the absence of Simon she wants Jace to come and share a bed with her but that is also not possible because she and Jace are sixteen and the parental figures of sixteen-year-olds generally do not allow their children to share beds with their significant others. Of course, Maryse is used to Jace and Isabelle’s escapades and doesn’t care what Clary and Jace do as long as it doesn’t involve getting eaten by demons. Jocelyn and Luke are the ones who made the rules that say that Jace can’t stay over at Luke’s and Clary can’t stay over at the Institute and a dozen more that she doesn’t bother to remember.

She can have other friends stay the night of course, so she has Isabelle or Maia over and sometimes both of them at once, but their companionship is not what she needs. Alec theoretically could stay over, but he’s living full-time with Magnus now and has a life of his own so Clary doesn’t even bother to ask. Anyway, she knows he’s not what she needs either.

She wants Jace. Or Simon. But one is impossible and the other she doesn’t get in all the ways she wants.

Instead she sleeps fitfully, tossing and turning and fighting her way through mazes of dark and terrible dreams. Valentine holds a dying Jace in his arms, Jocelyn lies in a coma, Luke is stabbed and soaked in blood, Sebastian bears down on her leering like a demon, Simon forgets her over and over and over again. In the morning she drags herself heavily out of bed and is out the door often before Jocelyn and Luke wake up.

She used to hate early morning training and complained constantly about it, but now it’s the only reason she bothers to get up. She lives for the crisp mornings when she, Jace and Isabelle run through their morning training and practice for the lives of blood and death their birthrights as Nephilim have forced onto them. Before, there had been a time when they would get all their training done and then have the rest of the day to themselves, but now they now have lessons too. Maryse finally got around to demanding a new tutor when Jocelyn threatened to send Clary back to mundane high school if the more academic portions of her education weren’t seen to.

The Clave sends Elijah Highsong, a soft-faced man in his early twenties who is bookish but a very bad teacher. He tries to take over their physical training for a grand total of one morning until first Jace and then Isabelle lay him out on the training room floor with their hands behind their backs. Clary might be able to take him too, if only because any compunctions she might have had about fighting dirty had died sometime after her evil brother was raised from the dead.

“He’s only here to get out of being sent on patrol,” Isabelle speculates one night while she, Clary and Jace are out for dinner with Alec and Magnus at some Italian place Magnus likes. “He’s young and able-bodied and with the numbers so down, he probably would have been assigned to another city as an active-duty Shadowhunter and have to actually--angel forbid--fight _demons_ ,” her voice drips with sarcasm. “As our tutor he’ll still have to patrol every once and a while but not anywhere near as often. He’s trying to avoid having to do the very job he’s training us for. Coward.”

Still whatever their theories about Elijah Highsong, Clary has to put up with the soul-crushingly boring academic lessons with him because she doesn’t think she could stand going back to her old high school and seeing Simon everyday without him knowing who she is. She is surprised when Jace and Isabelle put up with the lessons too in silent solidarity.

“It’s only until we turn eighteen,” Jace says when she asks him why. “Then we can all wash our hands of him.”

And so the days go by. Clary lives for days spent at the Institute with Jace and dreads the long nights spent alone.

One day in late January, Jocelyn and Luke plan to go out of town just the two of them. Magnus offers to have Clary spend the night at his and Alec’s so she doesn’t have to be alone. Clary starts to protest that she is not a child and does not need babysitting, but Magnus shoots her a look that clearly says to play along so she shuts up.

When Jocelyn and Luke drop Clary off at the apartment, just Magnus and Alec are in the living room petting Chairman Meow. Clary blushes her way through the long list of instructions Jocelyn prattles off feeling like she’s about five. She wants to point out that she saved the world not once but twice in the last year, but Magnus keeps looking at her in a way that clearly begs not to rock the boat.

Finally, Jocelyn and Luke are gone. Magnus peaks out the front window just to make sure then calls, “Alright you two, its safe to come out!”

Jace and Isabelle emerge from one of the spare bedrooms grinning like fiends. “When I heard your parental units were going to be out of town I thought it was the perfect time for a sleepover,” Magnus tells Clary and she throws her arms around him in thanks.

They have a nice evening full of games and pizza and movies. Everyone tries to ignore the Simon-shaped hole in their group, but no one quite manages it. When people finally start making noises about going to bed, Clary glances at Jace and she can tell that he is also contemplating just how long they’ll have to play at sleeping in separate bedrooms before they can sneak into the same bed together.

Magnus just looks at them. “I can see what you’re thinking. Go pick out a bedroom,” he says flicking his fingers at them. “I don’t care what you two do so long as Jocelyn doesn’t figure out about it. Okay?”

But they don’t actually end up doing much. They kiss for a while, but it quickly becomes obvious that neither of them is in the mood. Jace hasn’t been sleeping well either, so he’s as exhausted as she is. Eventually they just curl up together and try to sleep.

Clary wakes from a nightmare several hours later to Jace shaking her. “Nightmare?” he asks, the moonlight washing the color out of his hair and eyes. She nods slowly. “Me too,” he says. “Do you want to go for a run?”

And that’s how she and Jace end up going for a run through New York City at two in the morning. They let themselves out of the window in their room and climb down the side the building to the ground and then they just run. Technically, given that demons are active at night, this is pretty dangerous, but Clary has never felt more safe. She has a knife down her boot and her stele and a seraph blade hidden in her coat and Jace is probably better armed than she is. Anything that tries to hurt them it will be met with quite the surprise.

Eventually they end up somewhere in Brooklyn and Clary has to stop to catch her breath. Jace is barely winded but he’s the fastest Shadowhunter alive so that’s not surprising. Clary will probably never be able to match him in speed and endurance; she has her sights set on Isabelle and Alec instead.

She’s bent over, catching her breath when she hears a familiar laugh. She jerks up and looks around. They’re just outside of a movie theater that’s doing a late-night movie marathon. It must have just gotten out because people are pouring out onto the street. Amongst the crowd is a lanky boy with brown hair and glasses. Simon is laughing with Matt and Kirk and Eric and looking completely normal.

Clary isn’t breathing. This is not the first time she’s seen Simon since he gave away his memories in Edom, but this is the closest she’s been to him. She straightens up and waits for him to look her direction. He has to look at her. It’s Simon, even with memory loss he has to recognize her on some level. He has to.

Simon’s eyes pass right over her.

If she didn’t know better she would have thought that she and Jace were glamoured, but that’s not true. They put on no runes before leaving Magnus’s and the usual collection of girls and boys are definitely noticing Jace. She isn’t even important enough for Simon to notice her anymore.

She turns and runs. She runs for several blocks until the happy sounds of the mundane world that Simon has seamlessly slid back into have faded then she drops to the ground and cries. She’s glad that Simon is alive; she’d rather he was alive and didn’t remember her than for him to be dead, but it hurts. She doesn’t remember a world where Simon wasn’t right there next to her and she hates that this is the kind of world she lives in now.

A hand settles gently on her shoulder and Jace kneels down next to her. He’s so much faster than her that she knows the only reason she’s had these few minutes to break down alone is because he chose to let her have some time alone. He doesn’t say that everything will be okay or any of the other myriad platitudes she’s heard far too many of recently, he simply wraps his arms around her and holds her while she cries.

The sun is rising by the time they make it back to Magnus and Alec’s apartment. They’ve had maybe three hours of sleep between them and they’re both the sort of tired where you kind of want to melt into a puddle on the ground and never move again. They don’t bother climbing back in the window and instead pound on the front door until Magnus answers. He’s wearing a purple bathrobe and his alien slippers and looks at them with a strange, concerned, borderline parental expression that somehow makes him look his real age. “Shower and try to rest a little,” he finally says, stepping back to let them in. “We’re going to be making pancakes in a couple hours.”

Clary and Jace nod and head for the bathroom. They shower together, leaning numbly against each other while the hot water pours down on them. If any more tears are shed, no one needs to know.


	2. Jace

The New York Institute is an entirely different place now. Robert came home for only a couple days and in that time packed up all his things and moved them to the Inquisitor's mansion in Idris. Alec hasn’t moved his things out, but he and Magnus are pretty obviously living together and everytime he stops by the Institute he brings a few more of his things back to Magnus’s with him. Isabelle spends most of her time cloistered in her room grieving, Maryse does the same in her office. Elijah Highsong is quite possibly the most difficult person to tolerate ever.

All in all, things are not going well for the Lightwoods.

Maryse doesn’t cook anymore. Jace doesn’t begrudge her for it, in fact he completely understands. However, Izzy is perfectly capable of giving herself food poisoning with her own cooking if left alone, so Jace goes to the store and stocks up on frozen and easy-to-make meals so his mother and sister don’t starve. As for him, he appetite is not coming back. He knows its stress, but that doesn’t make it easier to eat when he feels like he’ll be sick if he tries.

He does a lot of training just to distract himself. He trains to make himself tired enough to sleep, he trains when he can’t sleep, he trains with Clary, he trains with Isabelle, he trains with Alec. His every spare moment--and he has a lot of spare moments now--is spent either training or chasing sleep. 

He practically lives for his sessions with Clary. She’s more focused on her training than ever, probably because she’s trying not to think about Simon. Dimly, Jace is aware that he should probably try to make sure Clary develops better coping mechanisms than he has, but that would require him to actually know some better coping mechanisms, which he doesn’t. 

On January 18, 2008 Jace turns seventeen and celebrates his real birthday for the first time. After early morning training and boredom-inducing lessons with Elijah Highsong, Jace and Clary go to the Strand. Clary looks at the manga and the art books, while Jace stakes out in the poetry section and paces up and down, plucking delicate chapbooks from the shelves. He hasn’t been in a bookstore since August and the feeling is surreal, like it belongs in another world. In the end, Clary ends up paying for all their books simply because she snatches Jace’s from him and won’t give them back no matter how much he begs.

“Have you ever thought about writing poetry?” she asks while on the subway heading to Magnus’s for the birthday party he and Alec have been not-so-secretly planning for weeks.

“No,” Jace admits. “I’m a Shadowhunter, we-”

“Don’t give me that,” Clary said. “You’re the one who said I would draw again even though I’m a Shadowhunter now. I’ll bet you could write poetry if you practiced. You should give it a shot.”

“Perhaps,” he says and eventually he does take her advice, though he doesn’t mention it to anyone for years. (The first of his poems that he shares is the one he writes for his and Clary’s wedding. He reads it aloud during the reception and they’re both crying by the time he finishes.)

But that is, unfortunately, years later. Right now there are other things to deal with.

When the Lightwoods had returned to New York after the Mortal War, they had found the door to Max’s bedroom open, how he had most likely left it in his excitement to leave for Alicante. Jace, Isabelle and Alec had discovered this because their bedrooms were all in the same hallway as Max’s. Isabelle had turned and fled to her room, but Jace and Alec had stood in the hallway for what felt like an endless period of time.  Eventually, Alec had closed the door firmly and walked away.

It doesn’t seem like Max’s room will ever be opened again by the time Clary is finally judged ready for her first real demon hunt. Given that Clary has already killed her fair share of demons, Jace wouldn’t be worried about it if Elijah Highsong wasn’t required by Clave law to come with them.

“You know, it’s almost hilarious that he’s giving us tips on how not to be eaten by demons,” Jace hisses to Clary as they’re arming themselves to go out, “when he’s the one most likely to be eaten by demons tonight.” Clary laughs and that sends Highsong into a twenty minute lecture about how demon hunting is a serious business and should not laughed about.

Somehow, the demon hunt goes fine. Surprisingly, and perhaps somewhat disappointingly, Highsong manages to survive. The tutor doesn’t seem to realize that he’d been entirely useless and had to be protected by a bunch of teenagers. Jace is honestly beginning to be thankful that this man isn’t on patrol, because he’d likely get another Shadowhunter killed.

They drop Clary off at Jocelyn and Luke’s and head back to the Institute. They had the early shift tonight, so there’s still plenty of time to get a decent amount of sleep before morning. They are climbing the Institute steps and Elijah Highsong has been rattling on since they got relieved. Jace has mostly stopped listening when the tutor says, “And then there’s those idiots too stupid to keep their children away from danger!”

Isabelle and Jace go so still and quiet that Highsong actually stops talking and looks at them in confusion.

“What did you say?” Isabelle asks, very tensely. There’s a warning in her voice that Jace recognizes immediately, but Highsong doesn’t.

“People should keep better track of their children,” Highsong says, chest puffing out in pride at the thought of telling them something they don’t know. “We lead dangerous lives and Shadowhunter parents should be aware of that and keep better watch over their children. If something horrible happens to a Shadowhunter child the family has no one to blame but themselves.”

For a moment that stretches on into infinity, neither Jace nor Isabelle responds. Then Isabelle takes an unsteady breath. “Damn you,” she snarls to Highsong, lips and hands trembling, “Damn you.” Then she turns and flees into the Institute.

Highsong’s mouth opens and closes a couple times. “What--She--I demand respect!”

“You do realize,” Jace says before the tutor can say anything more. “That Sebastian Morgenstern killed our baby brother during the Mortal War, don’t you?”

He doesn’t wait for Highsong to figure out what to say, and just heads inside. Izzy has barricaded herself in her bedroom and screams at him to go away when he knocks. Eventually he gives up and wanders along the mostly dark hallway. He plans to go back to his room to try to sleep when he finds himself standing outside Max’s door, still shut tightly. Almost without thinking, he finds himself opening the door and letting himself inside.

The room is just how it was before they left for Alicante during the Mortal War. Toys and manga volumes and clothes and training weapons are strewn across the floor in a way that sets Jace’s teeth on edge. Part of him wants to clean up, to set everything in order, but the rest of him wants to preserve the room like this forever, as a tiny piece of Max to hang onto. This is not right. Max was just a kid, he should not have been hurt, but then Jace knows better than to expect anything even approaching that level of humanity from Sebastian.

When morning finally comes Jace has somehow ended up lying on his stomach on Max’s bed. He watches the sunlight creep across the floor through eyes which are scratchy with tears and lack of sleep. He should get up and get ready for training, but he can’t find it in him to move. He still hasn’t moved when, some interminable amount of time later, the door opens and someone steals quietly into the room.

“Jace?” It’s Clary. Of course it is. None of the Lightwoods would have come into this room, even to confirm he wasn’t there. “Are you alright?”

Jace shrugs, he’s too exhausted for words let alone his usual cockiness.

Clary crosses the room and sits down on the edge of the bed, looking into his face with a serious expression. “Did you get any sleep?” she asks, running a hand through his hair.

Jace shakes his head.

“Izzy says we’re all boycotting training today,” Clary says conversationally. “What happened?”

Jace clears his throat and manages to speak, “What did Izzy tell you?”

“Just that none of us are training and then a list of anatomically unlikely and increasingly vulgar things Elijah Highsong can do to himself,” Clary says. She pauses for a moment and when Jace doesn’t respond says, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

“He just said something thoughtless about Shadowhunters who lose young children,” Jace forces the words out. His whole body feels like it’s made out of lead. He’s so tired. “I don’t think he even remembered about...about Max.”

Clary’s whole body tenses in anger, but she doesn’t prod any further. Instead she coxes Jace to his feet, leads him back to his room and tucks him into bed. When he’s comfortable, she settles against his headboard with her sketchbook balanced against her raised knees. “What should I draw?” she asks.

“Something happy,” Jace mumbles, snuggling in closer to her.

She chews on her lip for a moment, then begins to sketch the outline of a person. He watches in fascination as the random lines begin to coalesce into an image. He loves watching her draw.

It only takes a few minutes for him to realize that she’s drawing him. “You should draw yourself too,” he slurs sleepily. “I’ve never seen you draw yourself.”

“That’s because I’m bad at it,” Clary says. “My self-portraits never look good.”

“I’ll bet that’s not true,” He says, losing the battle to keep his eyes open. “Everything you draw looks amazing.”

When he next opens his eyes, Clary is talking quietly with Isabelle and Alec who apparently came over and kept Izzy company up on the roof all day. They’re discussing going to Taki’s for supper and whether or not Elijah Highsong deserves more punishment than just being snubbed. Clary’s sketchbook is lying on the bed, open to an almost-completed sketch of her and Jace smiling, their arms wrapped around each other.

The likeness is almost perfect.


End file.
